Des Bishop: Grey Matters

A shamrock-tinted look back at growing up in the 70s

Flashing his Tom Cruise smile, Des Bishop appears to have as much fun performing his show as a crowd does while watching it. At one point he's even bent double, impressed at a line he's just come up with which will now be embedded in the script. Sharply dressed and prowling his stage like a besuited panther, this Irish-American is reflecting on life now that he's into his fifth decade. And the conclusion he seems to have reached is that people should stop trying to console him for not being a father: five minutes in the company of his friends who have kids, and he's the one putting an arm round their shoulder.

'Kids today rule the world', he posits, casting his mind back to the regular slappings he and his siblings would receive from their mother. But this was Ireland in the 1970s, so what do you expect, huh? Nowadays, he enjoys the role of backseat parent, offloading advice about and on his nephews without properly facing the consequences.

Bishop is too long in the comedy tooth to not produce a quality hour of stand-up and he's in fine form here once again, even if he relies on some fairly well-trodden areas for his laughs. Surely we all know that making phone calls was a lot different in the 20th century and we've read and heard a million times before that kids were let off the leash a lot more back then than now. But with a permanently mischievous twinkle in his eye, it's hard not to resist the Bishop craic.

Off The Kerb Productions by arrangement with Lisa Richards Agency
One of Ireland’s most successful comedians is back in Edinburgh with a show about getting older. Shocked by turning 40, Des has caught himself saying things like 'in my day’. Not married, with no kids, Des thoroughly enjoys being the backseat parent…